Tag Archives: Told

I’m starting to “Like” some writers’ pages on FaceBook, but what I’m seeing is a lot of misuse of these pages.

A “Like” page is meant to advertise you and your special talents and products. Some posts talk about the weather, their families, national news, and sundry other topics. All this does is make your “Like” page become yet another social FaceBook page. Save those topics for the regular FaceBook pages and concentrate the information on your “Like” page only to your books and creativity. Delete what doesn’t apply, or ask the poster to move the conversation to your regular FaceBook page.

I’ve read posts all over the Net about reviewers, publicists, bloggers, agents, editors, etc., etc., who want to see a person’s “Like” page represent exactly what they do. The page represents its owner. So how do you wish to be seen: As a person with two social FaceBook pages, or a person who knows how to concentrate on promoting your talents?

Your “Like” page should be about you and YOUR books or your topic. What I’m seeing is that some are allowing their “Like” pages to become a dumping ground for writers and others to advertise their own books and projects. This is wrong.

For authors and artists, a “Like” page should be intended to showcase YOUR work.

A “Like” page should contain information about your books or topics and ONLY yours. Other writers may make comments and post to the page about your work. The only reference to their books and topics will be their signature. If you allow anything else on your page, then you are denigrating one of the greatest promotional venues available for your work.

People should be commenting on your books and topics on your page. They should be posting reviews of your work, maybe discussing your story characters, or how you write your stories, and so forth. You, in turn, would do the same on THEIR page, about their books and topics.

It seems that in everyone wishing to favor other writers by posting information that doesn’t apply to the page owner, they are doing a serious injustice to the promotional efforts of all. It’s an honest mistake, but I would suggest that when we post comments to someone else’s Like page or Fan page, that those comments reflect on the page owner’s work. They will do the same for us.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

In fleshing out the narrative of a story, writers need to describe mannerisms of the characters. These gestures and habits help the reader know your story people and what makes them tick. The actions each character performs must be in accordance with the scene and their responses to it.

These seemingly innocent extras that the writer adds must be accurate. Readers, especially avid readers, know when something isn’t right as the plot moves along. A wrong point or description can stick in the readers mind and distract from their ability to suspend disbelief and to lose themselves in a story.

An example might be when you have your character making physical gestures. When they roll their eyes, make sure it fits what you having them doing. Neurolinguistics teaches that a person rolls their eyes to the left if telling a lie, also known as constructed (made up) information. So if your character is telling a lie, make sure you don’t say he rolled his eyes to the right, which is from where remembered (true) information is pulled in.

Instead of being so detailed, which necessitates accuracy, you might simply want to say something like:

“He rolled his eyes, looking disgusted, and then studied the papers again.”

That’s a simple sentence that not only provides a good description of what is happening with the character at that moment, but also allows the reader to feel the character’s emotion.

A different example is if you have a left-handed cop. You might assume all cops in your story are right-handed, but suppose you make your cop character different. To flesh out his actions, you might want to add something to the fact that in spite of being an awkward left-hander, he was an award winning sharp-shooter quicker than lightning with his left handed draw. His left hand draw was quicker than any of the right handed cops on the force.

To include something like this about the cop does not and perhaps should not all be added when the cop first enters the story. Defining actions and gestures such as these are parsed out throughout the story whenever a scene allows for them. Perhaps with the cop, he might be identified as a sharp-shooter early in the story. Deeper into the story when the scene dictates him drawing his service revolver quickly, the rest could be added. Breaking up the information like this adds cohesiveness to the telling of the tale. Readers will remember that he was a sharp-shooter and will feel the connectedness to this character.

As with psychological aspects such as rolling the eyes in one direction or another, or other physical gestures, these must be accurate or they should not be included if the writer is unsure about the legitimacy of the facts.

Keep your readers in mind at all times during the writing of a story. Know that readers have read enough stories to know when an author is weak in their research.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

Video trailers help sell books. Just as a preview of a film or TV special can spark interest and make you impatient for the day you can see the show so, too, can trailers incite a potential reader’s interest.

If you are computer savvy, you will probably enjoy making your own trailer. If you are not knowledgeable in the way of putting written word, moving or still pictures and music together to make an exciting presentation, you should have the following items ready when you approach a professional to make the trailer for you.

1) Book title

2) Sub-title, if applicable

3) Name or pen name of the author(s)

Under this, you can include such phrases as “Award-winning novelist,” or
Author of ____(previous book title)_____

4) One or two brief blurbs from popular writers or well-known persons in the industry, if you have them.

This can be difficult. In order to distill, you need to keep your focus on your main
character and the main plot thread.

In my thriller, River Bones, I have a strong sub-plot about Vietnam MIAs which totally feeds into the main plot and that the story couldn’t be without. However, I never mentioned this sub-plot in any of the information used for the making of the trailer. See the trailer here (All four of my video trailers are on this page):

http://www.writeanygenre.com/book-trailers.html

8) Places where the book can be purchased

9) A .jpeg image of your front cover. You will be told the size requirements.

10) You should plan to do a fairly thorough search for photos that fit your distilled description. If they do not match the description, they will make the trailer seems confusing to the viewer. For each line of description, try to find one or two good photos that represent that bit of information. You may not use all of the pictures but it will give your video maker a good selection from which to choose.

11) You can also do a search for music to accompany your video. Music, in my opinion, can make or break your project. Blazing Trailers, who made all my videos, found an exquisite bit of music by Kevin MacLeod for my novel, The Ka, that so fit the story that I can’t remember the music I originally suggested.

All of these items will be required in order to begin building your video. The maker will probably suggest other pictures that better suit the action. She or he may also suggest different music than you were able to find. Professionals have access to royalty free photos and music that writers may not. Your suggestions in all of this will guide them to find the best products that emphasize your vision of how your wish your story portrayed.

If the video maker makes suggestions, listen. Check out every detail they offer. Your suggestions of photos and music are just that. If they don’t fit, they give the video maker a good idea of what you hope to create. Having once read your synopsis and distillation into ten sentences, you will be told which sentences to use and which to omit. The maker may even reword your sentences to make them more exciting. That may also be required in order to overlay the words onto a picture.

As the process moves along….

The maker will send you a mock-up, like a first draft. You can change or correct anything. Make sure your verbiage is as exciting as possible. The pictures should be as close a representation to the story as possible, especially any characters. If your story is about a brunette, don’t use a picture of a blonde. The music should accentuate the action. Once you approve at this point, the video is made into its final format.

The finished presentation may start with your book cover, but not necessarily. With my novel The Tropics, the video starts with a sailboat way out in the middle of the blue ocean. This was to exemplify the feeling of aloneness.

From the order of information at the end of the trailer for my thriller, Down to the Needle:

~ The book cover, author name and Web site

~ A very brief one line blurb from a popular writer or other, if available.

~ A list of places where the book can be purchased

~ The logo of the person or company that created the video

~ A credit for the music composer

Having all of this information readily available before you seek someone to make your trailer will quickly speed things along and minimize time and expenses. You’ll have some changes along the way to tighten up the presentation but once finished, you should have an exciting clip.